Julia Collins has dedicated her career to tackling some of the most difficult problems that our world faces: food insecurity, agricultural damage, ecological dead zones. Our food system is critical to everyone on this planet and Julia is the woman audacious enough to tackle it, head on. Julia has dedicated her career to food. She started as a restaurateur working alongside Danny Meyer among others to open some of New York City's hottest restaurants.
Then came tech inspiration, leading Julia to co-found Zume Pizza, recently shortened to Zume, a robotic food delivery company based in the Bay Area. Started in 2015, Zume aims to make healthy food fast and accessible. The company shortens and automates the entire supply chain of food delivery, preparing the food while it's being delivered to the customer and it all started with a crowd favorite pizza.
Zume is one of those rare companies that has reached unicorn status. The company is valued at $2.25 billion and Julia is the first black woman to reach unicorn status with her company. Just to put it in perspective, a 2015 study showed that only 12 black women founders had raised at least $1 million in venture capital funding. By 2017 that number had nearly tripled to 34, but there is still a long way to go and Julia is working hard to make sure her story is no longer in outlier.